Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (book)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) is a children's book by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric candymaker Willy Wonka. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1964, and in the United Kingdom by George Allen & Unwin in 1967. The book was adapted into two major motion pictures: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in 1971, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2005. The book's sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, was written by Roald Dahl in 1972. Dahl had also planned to write a third book in the series, but had never finished it. The story was originally inspired by Roald Dahl's experience of chocolate companies during his schooldays. Cadbury would often send test packages to the schoolchildren in exchange for their opinions on the new products. At that time (around the 1920s) Cadbury and Rowntree's were England's two largest chocolate makers, and they each often tried to steal trade secrets by sending spies into the other's factory, posing as employees. Because of this, both companies became highly protective of their chocolate making processes. It was a combination of this secrecy and the elaborate, often gigantic, machines in the factory that inspired Roald Dahl to write Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Plot Charlie Bucket, a nice boy from a poor family, lives with his parents and both sets of elderly grandparents (Grandpa Joe, Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina). From these four, especially Grandpa Joe, he hears stories about the candymaker Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory he built in Charlie's hometown. As time passed, rival chocolate makers sent in spies, posing as workers, in order to steal his recipes. Frustrated by this, Mr. Wonka decided to send home his workers and close the factory. Years of silence passed until one day, when the factory mysteriously came back to life. The gates remain locked however; the factory has resumed operations with workers whose identity is a mystery. Nobody, including Wonka, is seen going in or out of the factory anymore. One day, the headline of Mr. Bucket's evening paper states that Wonka is holding a worldwide contest, in which five Golden Tickets are hidden under the wrappers of his candy bars; the prize for those who find them is a day-long tour of the factory and a lifetime supply of chocolate. The contest becomes a worldwide mania, with people resorting to increasingly desperate and unscrupulous measures to find the tickets, and anyone who succeeds becomes front-page headline news and a worldwide celebrity. Charlie and four bad children, the gluttonous Augustus Gloop, spoiled Veruca Salt, gum-addicted Violet Beauregarde, and television-obsessed Mike Teavee, win the contest and go on the tour, led by Wonka. Grandpa Joe accompanies Charlie, while each of the other four children are chaperoned by both of their parents. As the group moves from room to room, the tour turns into a punishment for the bad children as one child after another falls victim to his/her particular vices and is removed. Augustus falls into a chocolate river and is sucked up a pipe to the fudge room; Violet turns into a blueberry after consuming experimental chewing gum; Veruca is thrown down a garbage chute after attempting to take one of Wonka's nut-cracking squirrels for her own; and Mike is shrunk after meddling with dangerous television equipment. They leave the factory with permanent reminders of their misbehavior as well as their lifetime supply of chocolate: Augustus is squeezed thin, Violet is purple, Veruca is covered in garbage, and Mike is ten feet tall and very thin (Wonka had him stretched to repair the damage caused by the TV equipment). Charlie is the only child who does not misbehave throughout the factory. Seeing that he is the only one left, Wonka announces that he has "won." He receives the entire factory and will take over the company after Wonka retires. The reason Wonka had sent out the Golden Tickets was to find a child to be his heir, as he himself has no family to carry on his work. Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe board a special glass elevator . As they are propelled up from the factory, the book ends, but the story continues in the sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.